Oculus Rift vs HTC Vive

Over the past two weeks we’ve highlighted all of AVA’s branded Virtual Reality systems in our arsenal and highlighted how they can enhance your experience exponentially. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as VR without the piece that pulls it all together, the headset. Over the past two years, two headsets have emerged as the clear favorites in the industry: Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. They may have different backgrounds, but both have surpassed a million units sold and don’t plan to stop there. The question is, what makes these peripherals unique? Does it matter which one you have? We can tell you all you need to know about each of the systems from their flaws to their features.

Oculus Rift

It’s fresh. It’s new. It’s been bought by Mark Zuckerberg. If Facebook purchases your company for 2 billion dollars, you are doing something right. The Oculus Rift hit the market this past march at $599. This seems a bit pricy for just a headset but is actually pretty reasonable when it comes to VR. The Oculus is a bit smaller than the rift naturally causing a bit less impact on you if you’re trying to play for hours on end. The display resolution in each eye is 1200×1080 AMOLED and have a display refresh rate of 90mhz. These are all standard but nonetheless effective and sharp. You can accompany your headset with well-known favorites such as Rock Band, Star Trek, and a VR sports adventure.

HTC Vive

HTC was the perfect company to head a VR charge. They are reputable in the electronics world and clearly aren’t hurting on spare income to fund a project. Luckily, this money was put to good use. The Vive was released just after the Rift, and it was designed to take use of the full room in front of you. If you’re ready to pay the fee of $800 to call it your own, we are sure it will be worth the purchase. It comes packaged with motion sensing technology that allows your movements to be tracked as if you’re actually in the game from the neck down as well. While you can pair with accessories to have any VR headset do this, the Vive is the only one that comes packaged with the ability. Its resolutions and refresh rate mimic the likes of the Rift that render very similar graphics quality. Due to the fact that it does have the motion sensing technology, it does carry a little more weight to it regarding the amount of cords on the headset. This is just a small cost for complete immersion with the HTC Vive.

Compare and Contrast

There are a few obvious differences between the two headsets that stick out immediately. Price is the natural first difference. The oculus is exactly $200 cheaper than the vive for only being able to not walk around the room without an accessory piece. Immersion is the next severe difference. The Oculus obviously throws you into a new world, but the Vive takes you deepero. With the immersive experience built in with the packaging, it makes a massive contribution to convenience as well as overall involvement. Besides these two clear variances the Vive and Rift are almost one in the same. They share just about the exact same graphics specifications, style of headset, and overall gaming ability. Considering they are the two leaders in a fairly new industry it will be hard to distinguish key differences until the industry develops a bit more.

Conclusion

They truly are almost one in the same which makes us think that the cheaper price is the one to buy. Oculus does have awesome features that give you a true VR experience, but the Vive takes it to a whole new level. The decision comes down to value to you as the consumer. You can decide to pay more for the Vive and take away more from the experience, or pay less with for the Oculus and take away less from the experience.